Savers fake death to get NSSF money

A disturbing and growing trend where members of the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) are reportedly claiming to have died so as to gain access to their savings has got the Fund’s leadership worried.
Mr Patrick Ayota, the NSSF managing director, yesterday warned the Fund has taken extra measures to catch whoever tries to deceive their way into illegal access to death benefit claims.

Speaking at a regional meeting with employers across northern Uganda in Gulu City, Mr Ayota revealed the provident fund is now carrying out rigorous scrutiny of all death benefit claims.

“Where it used to take a short time, because of the verifications we have to undertake for members who died, it (now) takes longer. Now, for example, when a member dies, we have to visit their home, we have to talk to the LC1 and the neighbours to confirm that the member died,” he said.
 “Members will do desperate things; we have had occasions where members have faked their death and also reported to Nira that they have died but on further verification, we discovered that they are [still alive],” he added.
Mr Ayota told the meeting how, relying on records from “Nira, [they] got onto their database and decided to test some data.”
We got some random data of ten applicants, four of them we found were [recorded as] dead on the Nira system, but were [actually] still alive”.

Under Ugandan law, the National Identification and Registration Authority (Nira) is supposed to record all births and deaths in the country. It is in that light that a dead NSSF member’s next of kin must provide a death certificate issued by Nira when making death benefit claims.

Warning against the rather morbid trend, Mr Ayota said the Fund visited places where persons reported dead were allegedly buried only to learn from locals that they were actually alive and well.

“Don’t try to fake it because the consequences are major. Now, if you go back and try to get another National Identification Number [from Nira], remember they took your biometrics…, they will cross check and find that you are someone who once died and it becomes criminal. This is something we discourage...,” he said.

Cancelling NIN
Mr Ayota highlighted the grave danger in having one’s NIN cancelled by Nira, given that a National Identity card has become a vital document.
“If you reported that you are dead, you cannot use it anymore. You imagine if you reported your death, what happens to you afterwards? You need papers, your bank needs it, police needs, etc...” The Fund’s chief executive separately revealed that some members are also telling lies about their age to claim eligibility for age benefit claims, which mature once one turns 55 years.

“Someone who is 50 years old comes and claims that they are 55 and wants their money, what we now do is to send such people to Nira to reconcile their records. If you bring out a national ID showing you are indeed 55, we will go ahead to process your payment because that ID overrides what we have in our system,” he said.

In a telephone interview yesterday, the Nira executive director, Ms Rosemary Kisembo, challenged NSSF to provide details of persons Nira reportedly declared dead yet they were still alive.
“It is the first time I have heard [of this]. I will request you to ask him (Ayota) because the law says he who alleges must prove. He needs to give you the letter (showing) when he reported this to Nira,” Ms Kisembo said.

Nira speaks
“For one to be declared dead by Nira, there is a notification from the hospital from which he died, there is also notification from the city (town) council from where the person dies… There is the process for presumed death and the process for violent death,” she said. 
“I don’t know who these people are because the next thing is, if they are alive, then I will ask for habeas corpus so that they be produced dead or alive,” Ms Kisembo added.
During the Gulu meeting, it was revealed by management that NSSF paid about Shs75 billion to 6,489 eligible members in northern Uganda last financial year, translating to about 6 percent of the total number of members the Fund paid benefits to, in that period.

“On average, all these benefits were processed within 11 days. We know that this turnaround time is still higher than anticipated, due to our new core system that isn’t yet optimised and the delayed verification from external partners, but it is still a great improvement over the last 10 years when we used to process benefits in 105 days,” the Fund’s managing director said.